Working-class Movement Library Events

'Sweet Responsibility' play read-through

IN April 2016, Charlotte Delaney, playwright and daughter of Shelagh Delaney (the Salford writer of A Taste of Honey, Dance with a Stranger and other plays) retraced an epic rail journey across America that her mother had first made in 1972.  She was accompanied by Selina Todd, historian and author of The People: the rise and fall of the working class, who is now writing the authorised biography of Shelagh Delaney. The journey helped shape Charlotte's latest play, Sweet Responsibility, which is having its first reading in the UK on Thursday 3 November 6pm at the Library.  Come and hear Charlotte and Selina discuss the life of one of Salford's most famous daughters - and listen to members of MaD Theatre Company read Sweet Responsibility, Charlotte's play about friendship and activism, as the ugly underbelly of a rural idyll puts a treasured friendship to the test.
Free advance tickets for the event are available via Eventbrite here.   We expect tickets to book up fast – and please note that because of limited space, people will only be able to get in to the event if they have a ticket. 

Invisible Histories talk on office workers and their unions 1914-39

On Wednesday 26 October at 2pm there will be a talk at the Library by Nicole Robertson from Sheffield Hallam University: “Organise, educate and agitate”:  trade unionism and office workers in Britain, 1914-39. The rising prominence of the clerical sector was one of the most important changes in the 20th century workplace.  As organisations grew larger and more complex the need for greater communication and documentation transformed office work.  Clerical workers became a key component of cityscapes and urban communities.  Trade unionism during the 1914-39 period is often associated with manual workers; however, office workers were engaged in trade union activity.  This talk explores how these white-collar workers challenged, resisted and negotiated their working conditions through clerical unions.
This free talk is part of our autumn Invisible Histories series.  All welcome.

Singing on the stairs as part of Museums at Night
 Come and enjoy the Library's great acoustic as two wonderful performers sing on the stairs on Thursday 27 October from 6.30 to 8.30pm. Broadside ballads from the Manchester region from the ‘Middleton Linnet’ Jennifer Reid form a counterpoint to Battle for the Ballot, in which singer-songwriter and People's History Museum songwriter in residence Quiet Loner uses original songs to tell the story of how working people came to have a vote.  The story will take in events like Peterloo, with a song Matt wrote after he read first hand accounts of the massacre here at the Library.  It goes on to focus on people – Chartists, politicians and suffragettes – who fought for the ideal of universal suffrage.  It’s all part of the nationwide Museums at Night long weekend, which is billed as ‘the UK’s ‘lates’ event for the culturally curious’.

Matt Hill says: 'When I was researching Battle for the Ballot, the Working Class Movement Library provided me with some amazing insights into the people who campaigned for our right to vote. I can't wait to perform the show at the Library.'
Jennifer Reid adds: ‘I'm really looking forward to singing at the WCML again. It's always a pleasure, and where better to debut some new material?’.
Admission is free, and all are welcome.  Pop along any time as the Library will stay open ‘after hours’ from 5pm, with light refreshments served.

Events at Salford Working Class Library

150 years of the Manchester and Salford Trades Council - exhibition
A new exhibition at the Library, To Make That Future Now!, celebrates the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Manchester and Salford Trades Council.
For 150 years the Trades Council has fought, not only for socialism and trade union rights, but also against injustices such as poverty, discrimination and unemployment - and, as two separate institutions since 1975, it still carries on the struggle.
Open Wednesdays to Fridays 1-5pm and the first Saturday in May, June and July 10am-4pm. The exhibition runs until 26 August.

Frow Lecture this Saturday

A reminder that Richard Cleminson will give the Library's 7th annual lecture in honour of Library founders Edmund and Ruth Frow in the Old Fire Station, University of Salford on Saturday 7 May at 2pm. His topic is “A new world in our hearts”: anarchism and the Spanish Civil War.
Admission free; light refreshments after.  All welcome.

Ruth and Eddie Frow

Salford's Sarsaparilla Sounds
 

Salford Museum & Art Gallery, Islington Mill and ourselves join forces to fly the flag for Salford on the evening of Thursday 12 May as part of Manchester After Hours 2016. Using WCML and Salford Museum as locations, Islington Mill will curate a live programme of music and spoken word.

The night starts 5pm onwards at WCML with spoken word performances from:
Louise Woodcock / Sue Fox / Bob Clowrey / Lauren Bolger / Alex Cook / Rachel Margettes / Rebecca Hurst - and more TBA.
In keeping with the ethics of the library founders there will be no alcohol served for the spoken word performances -  instead Steep Soda will be running a temperance bar, serving delicious and unusual soft drinks.

After 7pm the audience will head across the road to Salford Museum & Art Gallery where Islington Mill will produce a live music programme, and there will be a bar serving alcohol and other refreshments.

More information here.

A one night only, city-wide social. A mix of odd couplings and unexpected partnerships. A chance for you to get into places and spaces not normally open after hours. It’s Museums at Night, it’s Manchester After Hours. Events across the city, Thursday 12 May.  For more information visit manchesterafterhours.com.

Our third film mini-festival

A trio of films to make you think...
The Working Class Movement Library is delighted to announce details of its third film mini-festival. In keeping with the Library's eclectic collections we have a range of screenings on offer - there's a radical history flavour as you'd expect.   All the screenings are free – and there will be popcorn...
Wednesday 18 May  6.30pm
In the company of Joan - première showing
Wendy Richardson’s documentary takes a look at the influence that those who spent time in the company of theatre director Joan Littlewood had on working class actors and audiences alike.  It covers her early days touring Northern communities with Ewan McColl through to the Theatre Royal Stratford East years, and the work with young people in the East End of London.
Wednesday 25 May 6.30pm
Watford's quiet heroes: resisting the Great War - NB CHANGE OF PROGRAMME
A film made by members of the Quaker Meeting in Watford, one of whom is a retired professional film-maker. It tells the stories of three local conscientious objectors but aims to frame them within an explanation of the national context and to generate interest in the legacy and relevance of war resistance today.
Wednesday 1 June 6.30pm
To begin the world over again: the life of Thomas Paine 
This film of Ian Ruskin’s one-man play addresses a multitude of contemporary issues that challenge us today. The story of Paine, ‘a man who changed the world with his pen’, also inspires us to always speak the truth as one sees it, no matter the consequences’.


Talkin' 'Bout That Representation
In 1969 the Representation of the People Act, which allowed people aged 18, 19 and 20 to vote in elections, was passed. During the 2014 Scottish Referendum 16 year olds were allowed to vote for the first time.
The People’s History Museum and the Working Class Movement Library want to bring together the youth of the 1960s and today’s young people to discuss all matters relating to the right to vote and youth culture. We’re holding a joint event on Friday 3 June at 2pm at the Library, as part of the Manchester Histories Festival.

To book a ticket for the event visit https://representation.eventbrite.co.uk.

This is a Manchester Histories Festival event -
Manchester Histories Festival 3-12 June 2016
Ten days  of  events  celebrating  the  familiar  and  revealing  the  new  and hidden  histories  and  heritage  from  across  Greater  Manchester.  Whether people  would  describe  themselves  as  histories  fans  or  not,  MHF2016  will have something for everyone. manchesterhistories.co.uk


Fishing in the Dustbowl fundraising concert
The Library's second musical fundraising concert takes place on Sunday 5 June from 2-4pm in Peel Hall, University of Salford, in conjunction with the University, and features Will Kaufman, performing and talking about some of his Woody Guthrie songs, and John Conolly performing and talking about  his own songs about life and work in the east coast fishing industry. This event is also part of the Manchester Histories Festival and as such we are promised a couple of Ewan MacColl’s songs as well...

Tickets at £10 (£8 concessions) will be available very soon from the University online shop at shop.salford.ac.uk.


Cotton famine talk
On Wednesday 11 May at 7.30pm, Saddleworth Historical Society is hosting a lecture by Dr. David Brown of Manchester University, "Distress in Lancashire": the Cotton Famine and British Intervention in the American Civil War.

The American Civil War (1861-65) had a profound influence on British politics and society. Abraham Lincoln’s naval blockade drastically curtailed cotton supplies, and the ensuing Cotton Famine caused a devastating downturn in the Lancashire textile industry and severe unemployment among cotton operatives. Could the Famine have forced the British government to break its policy of neutrality?

The talk takes place at the Conservative Club, High Street, Uppermill, Saddleworth, OL3 6AP (the Society has no political affiliation...).  Admission £3.

Conscientious Objectors Day
The Friends of Manchester Peace Garden are holding an event 'to mark the quiet heroism' of those who followed their own consciences by refusing to take part in any killing during a time of war.  On Sunday 15 May at 4pm people are invited to gather in the former Apple Market between the Cathedral and Chetham's School of Music, which is the Friends' preferred site of the future Peace Garden.  The Open Voices choir will sing and  names of local COs will be read out.  All welcome.

And on Tuesday 17 May at 6.30pm Dr Clive Barrett will give a talk, Subversive Peacemakers, at the Rochdale Pioneers Museum alongside their exhibition dedicated to COs Percy Redfern and George Dutch.  He will highlight a strong strand of anti-war sentiment in the Church of England during WW1, which was opposed to the dominant theology of the Establishment. This was partly based on traditional Christian pacifism, but included other religious, social and political influences.

England's Oldest Film Society

The Early Days Of Manchester & Salford Film Society

AS part of the 'Invisible Histories' series at the Working Class Movement Library, Robert Taylor gave a talk on the history of the Manchester & Salford Film Society. It was a balanced account that focused on the rise of film in working class culture in the 1920s and 1930s. This was a time when Hollywood films dominated popular culture and the Manchester & Salford Film Society under the influence of the trade unionist and shop steward Reg Cordwell tried to present an alternative with Russian films promoting the virtues of Soviet life such as 'Storm over Asia' , 'Turksib' which would now be accused of 'Orientalism' and later, more psychological German films like 'The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari'.

The first secretary of the Film society was Tom Cavanagh, who had been a founding-member of the Communist Party, and the long-term organiser and archivist, Reg Cordwell, was a shop-steward with a strong interest in workers' education. The first show was on 15 November 1930 at the Prince's Cinema, Liverpool Street, and included a Laurel and Hardy short and a ‘travelogue' on the River Thames. More significantly, it also presented two Russian films - 'The First Time in History' concerned the USSR's first five-year plan, and 'Two Days' was a drama about the conflict between Whites and Reds in southern Russia. Russian films were to feature heavily in the Society's programmes. This policy fell foul of Salford's Watch Committee, which in July 1931 refused permission for the showing of Pudovkin's classic, 'Storm over Asia'. Billing it as ‘the film Salford must not see', the Society moved the show to Manchester, where it was largely to remain for the next 66 years.

As our cultural correspondent, Chris Draper, has shown in the current issue of Northern Voices - see 'Six O' the Best Northern Films' in NV12 - that in a sense 'Cinema was invented in the North (of England) with the earliest surviving, 1888, film featuring street life in Leeds city centre' with popular producers including Bradford's "Captain Kettle Films", Frank Mottershaw's Sheffield Photo Company, Walter Scott of Manchester, Bamforths at Holmfirth and Mitchell & Kenyon of Blackburn. But after World War I, Hollywood and the studios down South tookover the medium and, it seems, that the only alternative was presented by these independent film societies such as those described by Robert Taylor.

OUR publication Northern Voices is on sale at the Cornerhouse cinema bookshop and in our publication there have been regular reviews of cinema at the Cornerhouse particularly during the Viva Festivals. If you have difficulty finding our journal on sale at your local newsagent you may make a postal subscriptions by sending a cheque for £4.20 payable to 'Northern Voices' for two issues (post included)to 52, Todmorden Road, Burnley, Lancashire, BB10 4AH.

Ragged Trousered Philanthropists: Is it the Workers' Bible, a working-class Vanity Fair or just a bloated 750-page novel?

LAST month Northern Voices published Chris Draper's review of Howard Brenton's adaptation of 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists' that showed at the Liverpool Everyman last summer. In it he denounced the lack of interest of the current trade unions concluding: 'A 100 years after Tressell's death, on 3rd, February 1911, local trade union officials tell me that "there are no plans to mark the centenary as there are no funds"! Tressell must be turning in his pauper's grave.'

In last Saturday's Guardian Review Howard Benton himself wrote a tribute to Robert Tressell. In it he he payed tribute writing: 'It became known as "the Socialist Bible" and was even credited with winning the general election for the Labour party.' Is it the great working-class novel or 'Vanity Fair'?

Chris Draper in his Northern Voices review says the cut-down version by its first publisher was best because while 'at its best the novel uniquely captures aspects and idioms of working class life ... Tressell couldn't resist the temptation to over-egg the pudding.' He completed 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists' in 1910, but the original handwritten 1,600-page manuscript was rejected by three publishers.

Was it a 'Socialist Bible' or was it as Draper says too big and bloated? How does it measure against the Manchester/ Wakefield writer George Gissing's portrayal of a down at the heal journalist in 'New Grub Street' or Conrad's description of the peasant in 'Nostromo' or Henry James's insight into political activists in 'The Princess Casamasima'.

'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists' is seen as a rare British working-class novel, but what is meant by a 'working-class novel'? Is a novel written by a workingman (or woman) or is it a novel that depicts the working-classes? Howard Brenton describes Robert Tressell, whose real name was Robert Noonan, thus: 'Robert Noonan was born in Dublin in 1870, the illegitimate son of Mary Noonan and a police inspector.' He wrote that he and his daughter moved to Johannesburg where he made his way as a skilled artisan, a scenic painter and sign writter' and that he 'became known as a political activist: he was a member of the Johannesburg Trades & Labour Council...' Coming to England to live in Hastings (Mugsborough in the novel) in 1906 he became a member of the local Social Democratic Federation, which Brenton describes as 'a small leftwing party whose founding members included William Morris.' Morris later left this party regarding it as too dogmatic and narrow.

Howard Brenton describes Tressell's book as 'the working-class Vanity Fair' and he argues that: 'In the 1900s the two paths socialism could take were already mapped: revolutionary and parliamentary.' Tressell took the revolutionary road of the Social Democratic Federation, which ended in the 'disaster of the Soviet Union'. But he writes: 'the reformist path taken in Britain has led ... to the watering down and sluicing away of all socialist aspirations by New Labour.' Yet he concludes optimistically arguing: 'Tressell's wonderful book convinced me that it's time to begin the struggle for the co-operative commonwealth all over again.' Draper in NV 12 was more pessimistic entitling one subheading: 'The long march (downhill) of socialism'.

But it seems that Chris Draper was wrong in his conclusion in NV12 that 'there are no plans to mark the centenary (of Tressell's death)' by the trade unions, as Manchester Trade Union Council has helped to organise an exhibition at the Working Class Movement Library, at 51, The Crescent, Salford until 10th March between 1pm and 5pm Mondays to Fridays.

Spanish Civil War talk at Working Class Movement Library, Wednesday 24th March 2010

This wednesday 24th March 2pm, a local historian Chris Carson will give a talk at the Working Class Movement Library on local participation in the Spanish Civil War. Hopefully he will make reference to Anthony Beevor's excellent book on the the war entitled "The Battle for Spain".

There is a section on the International Brigades which makes extensive references to the Moscow Archives and is a devastating critique of the role of the Communist leadership of the Brigades alluding to the hundreds of executions of brigade members and the concentration camp at Camp Lukacs.